Wireless communications systems continue to grow in popularity and have become an integral part of both personal and business communications. Mobile wireless communications devices allow users to place and receive voice calls most anywhere they travel. Moreover, as technology has increased, so too has the functionality of mobile wireless communications devices and the different types of devices available to users. For example, many mobile wireless communications devices now incorporate personal digital assistant (PDA) features such as calendars, address books, task lists, etc. Moreover, such mobile wireless communications devices may also allow users to wirelessly send and receive electronic mail (e-mail) messages and access the Internet via a cellular network and/or a wireless local area network (WLAN), for example.
As a result, users continue to spend more time using their mobile wireless communications devices during the course of a day for performing tasks such as reading emails, reading web pages, sending short message service (SMS) messages, etc., as opposed to early mobile wireless communications devices that were used only for voice calls. The use of a mobile wireless communications device for such functions, however, may present certain inconveniences to a user.
For example, a mobile wireless communications device may not have a full keyboard where each letter of the alphabet is assigned to its own key. Indeed, keys on a keyboard of a mobile wireless communications device may have two or more letters assigned thereto. In addition, the mobile wireless communications device may permit selection of different keyboard modes of the keyboard. These different keyboard modes may alter which letters of the alphabet are assigned to each key or how a desired letter to be entered is selected. For example, mobile wireless communications devices utilizing virtual keyboards on touch screen displays may reconfigure their virtual keyboards so that one, two, three, or even four letters are assigned to each virtual key.
Methods of effectively communicating to a user which keyboard mode a mobile wireless communications device is presently in are therefore desirable.